Show full transcript 0:57 ice cold lemonade, but only offer them a soggy crumpled up paper straw to drink it with. 1:02 Okay, let's get into today's story. 1:26 Starting a business is tough. Shopify makes it easier. Build a beautiful store, write with 1:31 AI and manage marketing, inventory and shipping all in one place. Join millions who trust 1:37 Shopify to launch and grow their business effortlessly. If you're ready to sell, 1:41 you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into... 1:46 up for your one euro per month trial at Shopify.ie. Go to Shopify.ie. It's time to see what you 1:53 can accomplish with Shopify by your side. 1:55 Let your little ones imagination run wild with Bill DeBear at McDonald's because you 1:59 might just see a sparkly kitty but your little ones sees an underwater town detective who 2:03 solves ghost mysteries and drives a giggle-powered pirate ship. Some fun, some food, it's 2:08 all inside this happy meal. Until the 2nd of November from 11am includes one pre-selected 2:13 Booker Toy Wastock's last subject to availability. 2:21 Around 9.30 a.m. on June 16, 2010, 2:24 a 29-year-old woman named Lanelle Barsock 2:26 lay in bed in her house in Palmdale, California. 2:29 It was a Wednesday, and Lanelle had the day off 2:31 from her job at a health center in Los Angeles. 2:34 But she didn't really have time to relax 2:36 because she was also a college student. 2:38 She was working on becoming a registered nurse 2:40 and she knew she had to get up and go study, 2:42 but she just didn't feel like it. 2:44 Plus, she could hear her boyfriend, Louis, 2:46 Louis moving around in the kitchen downstairs, and just knowing Louis was down there was 2:50 another reason to stay put. 2:53 So Linnell and Louis had been together for about four years. 2:56 They'd met in college and immediately hit it off. 2:58 Now, they own this house together, a five-bedroom home that they'd scraped together all their 3:03 savings to make a down payment on. 3:05 At the beginning of their relationship, Linnell and Louis had been completely in love and 3:09 on the same page about building a life together. 3:11 But, over time, Lewis had become this incredibly jealous and possessive person that was just 3:17 really volatile and it really just kind of scared Lanelle and was beginning to drive 3:22 her away. 3:23 And then just a few months ago, they'd gotten into this huge screaming fight when he had 3:28 heard her talking to another guy on the phone. 3:30 That fight had gotten so bad that she had tried to drive away, but Lewis had literally 3:35 chased her in his truck which led to both of them crashing. 3:39 Even now, as she laid in bed months later, Lanelle still felt traumatized by that whole thing. 3:45 They had eventually made up, but it was hard to look at Louis in the same way. It was like 3:49 she couldn't see a future with him anymore. All she saw now was this volatile, controlling guy. 3:54 And so lately, Lanelle was seriously considering ending things with him. 3:59 But just then, Lanelle's phone buzzed on the nightstand, interrupting her thoughts. 4:03 It was a message from her friend Lorraine asking if she was up, 4:06 And as soon as she saw it, Linel just kind of sighed because she actually had forgotten 4:10 that she had plans with Lorraine, who would offer to do Linel's hair that day. 4:15 So resigned, she texted Lorraine to come on over, then Linel got out of bed. 4:21 About 30 minutes later, Linel sat on a bar stool and ate breakfast at the kitchen 4:25 island with Louis. 4:27 The stools were actually some of the only furniture in the whole house. 4:30 It had already been a year since they'd moved in, but Linel so far had not had 4:34 time to decorate. 4:35 As she ate, Lanelle tried to keep her chit chat with Lewis to a minimum. 4:39 They'd been fighting so much lately that she didn't want to accidentally start an 4:43 argument. 4:44 But Lanelle was a naturally bubbly and talkative person, and so just sitting here being quiet 4:49 was kind of awkward. 4:51 So she was actually relieved when she heard the front door open and her friend Lorraine 4:55 walked in. 4:56 Lanelle smiled. 4:57 Lorraine lived right in Palmdale, and so it was nice for Lanelle to have a 5:00 friend so close by. 5:01 The rest of Linnell's friends and family were in LA about an hour and a half away. 5:07 Lorraine walked over and gave Linnell a hug and the two of them began talking while Lewis 5:11 got ready to leave. 5:12 He was going to have his truck worked on actually by Lorraine's boyfriend who lived near LA 5:16 and would do the work for a low price. 5:19 It was a long drive but it was worth it for the savings. 5:22 Lewis ultimately left without even saying goodbye and then at that point Lorraine 5:26 worked on Linnell's hair while Linnell vented about Lewis and how tense things 5:30 had gotten. 5:30 And just talking about everything actually made her feel better, even though she had no 5:35 idea how she was actually going to solve any of these big problems in her relationship. 5:41 But about an hour later, Lanelle suddenly heard tires screech into the driveway outside. 5:46 Seconds later, Louis burst into the house looking absolutely furious. 5:51 He was holding a cell phone above his head and waving it around in the air. 5:54 And Lanelle immediately recognized this phone. 5:57 phone. Because it was her secret phone that she'd actually gotten from her other boyfriend. 6:03 That guy she'd been talking to on the phone with the day she and Lewis got in that big 6:07 fight about it that ended with the car crash? Well, the truth was, you know, Lewis had a 6:11 reason to be upset because she was talking to another guy who she was involved with. 6:16 It was this other boyfriend. 6:17 That other boyfriend's name was Ike, and Lanelle had met him about four months 6:21 ago on a dating website. Both of them were seeking careers in nursing and they 6:26 had a ton in common. Ike was also way calmer, more successful, and more motivated than Lewis. 6:32 He lived over 300 miles away in Northern California, but whenever he had time off and Lewis wasn't home, 6:38 he came down to Palmdale to see Linnell. On the day of Linnell and Lewis' huge fight, 6:44 Linnell had promised Lewis that she would never talk to Ike again. But that had been a lie, 6:48 and now Lewis had caught her. And so Lewis started yelling, demanding to know if Linnell 6:53 was still cheating on him, and Lanelle felt her heart start racing. 6:57 The last time Lewis had gotten like this, their fight ended with a literal car crash. 7:01 She didn't want that to happen again, so she decided the best way to handle this 7:05 was to just remove herself from this situation. 7:08 So she just walked over and grabbed the secret phone out of Lewis' hand 7:12 and then ran out the door with Lorraine while Lewis kept on screaming at her. 7:17 Lanelle and Lorraine jumped into Lanelle's car and sped out of the neighborhood. 7:22 Linel couldn't stop shaking, because she knew Lewis was furious and she didn't really know what 7:27 was going to happen next, and so she and Lorraine decided that they would just go kill some time by 7:31 going to a beauty store to get some more products, and hopefully by the time they got home, Lewis 7:35 would be gone. The two of them got to the store around noon. Linel and Lorraine went inside, 7:41 and Linel walked around the aisles, grabbing products. Her heart was still hammering in 7:45 her chest, and when she checked out at the counter, she found herself just staring into 7:49 space, trying her best to, you know, not think about Louis, but she couldn't help herself. 7:54 But by the time she actually had her products paid for and put in a bag, 7:58 she was starting to calm down just a little bit. Then she headed outside with Lorraine. 8:02 However, as soon as she stepped out of the shop, she gasped, because right there on the sidewalk 8:07 was Louis. He was waiting for her. Louis demanded to know if she was still seeing Ike, 8:13 and at first, Lanelle was just super defensive, like she always was when they fought. 8:16 But as Lewis continued to rant and accuse her, her head just started to pound and then suddenly 8:23 it was like all of her fear and stress about this relationship just disappeared. This weird 8:28 sense of calm came over her and she knew this was it. This was the last straw. She was done and 8:34 she just wanted Lewis out of her life. So she exhaled, handed Lewis her second phone, 8:39 and then just stormed back over to the car with Lorraine. About 15 minutes later, 8:46 where Lanelle parked her car in the driveway at home. 8:49 When she'd gotten into her car and driven away, she'd thought that maybe she had lost 8:52 Lewis, and she'd hoped that he had just driven somewhere far away to cool down. 8:56 But apparently that hadn't happened, because his truck was parked right outside the house, 9:01 which meant Lewis was inside, waiting for her. 9:04 Lanelle wanted to scream. 9:06 She glanced at Lorraine, who just reached over and squeezed her hand, trying to 9:10 give her a bit of encouragement. 9:12 Then Lanelle just took a deep breath. 9:13 death. She knew what she was doing with Ike was wrong, but she was sick of all the fights 9:17 and of Lewis trying to control everything about her. I mean, the relationship had died 9:22 months ago. She just needed to end it now, officially. She wished she had more time to 9:27 plan out how to do this, but after today, she felt like she had no choice. She just 9:31 had to go in there and tell him this was done. 9:35 So Lanelle got out of her car and headed towards the house. 9:37 Over six hours later, around 6.45pm, Lanelle's friend Lorraine was staring down at her silent 9:49 cell phone and starting to feel nervous. 9:52 Lanelle hadn't called her after whatever final fight she had had with Lewis, and Lorraine 9:56 had a bad feeling about the whole thing. 9:58 She knew that Lewis and Lanelle's fights had the possibility of getting completely 10:02 out of hand. 10:03 I mean, they had before. 10:05 So now, Lorraine was back at Lanelle's house just making sure her friend was 10:09 okay. 10:10 But as she walked through the living room, she noticed their house was unnaturally quiet. 10:15 Louis was not there, and it didn't seem like Lanelle was there either. 10:19 That morning Lorraine had been afraid, you know, when Louis was chasing them all around 10:22 town and now she was starting to get that same nervous sense that maybe Louis was nearby 10:27 about to spring out at her. 10:29 But she told herself to just settle down and focus. 10:32 However, when she passed by the laundry room, she felt this wave of panic so intense 10:36 come over her that she had to grasp the wall just to steady herself because there on the laundry 10:41 room floor was a pile of bloody towels. And then beyond the laundry room there was a door that led 10:47 into the garage and it was partially open. And so Lorraine was very nervous but still she felt 10:52 like she had to investigate and so she walked over to the door and she pushed it all the way 10:57 open. Now it was dark in the garage so she couldn't see much and so she just stepped forward 11:02 And when she did, she stepped onto this plastic bag that was slick, and it caused her to trip 11:07 and fall to the ground. 11:09 And then when she looked at what she had fallen in, she realized it was blood. 11:13 She stood up as quick as she could and then just stood there, staring at the garage, like 11:16 waiting for movement. 11:17 But there was no one in there. 11:19 And then as her eyes slowly adjusted, she saw Linnell's car. 11:23 It had been backed into the garage and was now sitting there with its trunk open. 11:27 And when she looked at the ground by its back wheels, she saw something sticking 11:30 out from behind the car, and the longer she stared at it, the more the image clarified. 11:35 It was a pair of feet. At this point, Lorraine turned and ran. 11:43 A few minutes later, Lorraine sped into the parking lot at the Palmdale Sheriff's Department. 11:48 Once she parked, she stumbled out of her car and began running towards the front doors. 11:53 Once she got inside, she charged up to the employee at the front desk 11:56 and just started yelling about how there was blood, so much blood, 11:59 and how she had slipped in it when she tried to find her friend, 12:02 and her friend was just lying there and she knew she wasn't making a lot of sense but 12:05 it was like it was impossible to think. 12:08 Finally though, she was able to calm down enough that she just blurted out, my friend 12:12 Linnell was murdered. 12:21 Let your little one's imagination run wild with Bill DeBear at McDonald's 12:25 because you might just see a sparkly kitty but your little one sees an underwater town detective 12:29 who solves ghost mysteries and drives a giggle-powered pirate ship. 12:33 Some fun, some food, it's all inside this happy meal. 12:37 Until the 2nd of November from 11 a.m includes one pre-selected book or toy 12:40 Wastock's last subject to availability. 12:42 She calls it other mommy. 12:44 She looks like you. 12:45 What? 12:46 From Blumhouse, executive producer of Obsession. 12:49 It was me. 13:11 Later that night, around 11 p.m., two homicide detectives stood in the driveway of Linnell's 13:22 home, looking up at the two-story house. 13:24 Their names were Bob Kenny and Joe Espino, 13:26 and they were veteran detectives 13:28 who worked together all the time. 13:30 They'd come all the way from 13:31 the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau, 13:33 which meant they'd just driven about an hour and a half 13:35 to get to Palmdale. 13:37 But this actually wasn't out of the ordinary. 13:39 Detective Kenny had been called to Palmdale 13:41 more than a few times to investigate homicides there. 13:44 Palmdale had gotten safer in recent years, 13:47 but the murder rate was still higher 13:48 than both the state and the national average. But as Kenny looked at his surroundings, 13:54 this trip to Palmdale felt different. They were in an upscale neighborhood, 13:57 and the house they were standing in front of looked nice. 14:01 The detectives walked inside, and right away Kenny noticed that the front door was undamaged, 14:06 and a uniformed police officer who was standing in the entryway 14:09 told them that there were no signs of force entry at the back door either. 14:13 Kenny had already been briefed that this home was owned by a 29-year-old woman 14:17 named Lanelle Barsock, who was found dead in her garage by a friend, right after what 14:21 sounded like a pretty intense fight with her boyfriend. 14:24 Lanelle shared the home with that boyfriend, Louis Bonair, and Louis was nowhere to be 14:29 found. 14:31 So, to Kenny, this was starting to look like a pretty straightforward case. 14:35 Romantic partners, especially angry ones, were always the first suspects, and the 14:40 fact that Louis had apparently taken off made him look even more suspicious. 14:44 There were already officers out canvassing the neighborhood and calling Lewis's friends 14:48 and family, trying to track him down. 14:50 The uniformed officer led Kenny and Espino through the house towards the garage. 14:55 As they walked, Kenny noted the strange emptiness of all the rooms. 14:59 Some didn't even have furniture in them. 15:01 But this didn't feel like robbers had come in and removed all the furniture. 15:05 It just sort of seemed like the house was vacant. 15:08 And on top of that, there really were no signs of robbery in general. 15:11 I mean, the TV was there, and nothing had been rifled through, but Kenny was more struck 15:15 by the fact that there was so little to steal in the first place. 15:19 To get to the garage, the detectives had to pass through a laundry room, and when 15:24 he stepped inside that area, Detective Kenny saw bloody towels everywhere and smears of 15:29 blood on the floor. 15:30 It was immediately obvious that whoever had killed Lanelle had tried, and failed, 15:35 to clean up their mess. 15:36 When Kenny and Espino stepped into the garage, they found there was a car there 15:40 that had been backed in and had its trunk open. 15:43 Next to it on the ground were more bloody towels along with large plastic sheets 15:47 and most of them were shoved to the side and in a big pile. 15:50 But there was some bloody plastic sheeting that was up by the door to the laundry room 15:54 where they were standing. Detective Kenny stepped into the garage around the bloody 15:58 towels to the far side of the car where he saw a pair of feet on the floor. It was Lanelle. 16:04 Her face was covered by a black plastic bag and so Detective Kenny knelt down and 16:09 peeled back the plastic. He found her face and head were covered in blood, and when he tipped her head 16:14 to the side, he saw the source, a bullet hole right in the back of her skull. He wondered if 16:20 the killer had wrapped her head in plastic to try to, you know, clean up or contain the blood, 16:24 or if they had felt some kind of remorse and couldn't bear to look at Linnell's face. 16:29 Detective Kenny stood and moved over to the trunk of the car. When he looked inside, 16:34 he saw that it was full of garbage bags which were packed with bloody sheets and bedding. 16:39 It looked like the killer must have been trying to put all this evidence into the car and 16:42 drive away with it, except they hadn't actually done that. 16:46 Instead, they left the car behind, along with everything else, which just didn't make 16:50 any sense. 16:51 Kenny wondered if maybe something like, you know, the arrival of Linnell's friend, 16:55 Lorraine, had interrupted the killer before they could escape. 16:59 But just then, a deputy stuck his head in the garage and excitedly told the 17:03 detectives that they'd just found something. 17:05 Moments later, detectives Kenny and Espino were standing in the kitchen. They were leaning 17:10 over a piece of paper that lay on the floor, right beside a yellow evidence marker the 17:14 crime scene text had placed. This piece of paper had messy handwriting on it. Kenny made 17:19 sure it was photographed before he picked it up with his gloved hand to look closer. 17:24 It was a letter, signed by Lanell and addressed to Lewis, her boyfriend. The letter said 17:29 she was leaving him for her other boyfriend, Ike. At this, Kenny raised his eyebrows. 17:36 The missing boyfriend, Louis, was already suspect number one, and this note certainly gave him a 17:40 motive for murder. But it also gave Kenny a second suspect, this other boyfriend, Ike. 17:46 Maybe he thought this case was going to be more complicated than he first expected. 17:51 He looked around at the bare kitchen and the empty rooms beyond it, and it looked to him 17:55 like neither of the people living in the house had actually committed to settling in 17:59 and staying together. 18:01 Lanell apparently had one foot out the door already. 18:04 As he read the note one more time, Kenny wondered what other secrets his victim might 18:08 have been keeping. 18:14 Detectives Kenny and Espino were still on scene when a uniformed officer came to 18:18 tell them that they had gotten a lead on the missing boyfriend, Lewis. 18:22 Apparently, he had gone to Los Angeles, and he often stayed at Lanell's mom's 18:26 house when he was there, since the drive-back to Palmdale was so long. 18:30 It was the middle of the night by this point, but that didn't matter. 18:34 Kenny dispatched an LA police officer to wait outside of Linnell's mother's house's 18:37 backup, and then he dialed the phone number for Linnell's mom. 18:41 After a few rings, a woman answered. 18:44 When Detective Kenny introduced himself, she confirmed she was Linnell's mother, 18:49 Bobby Barsock. 18:50 She sounded concerned and asked what was going on, but Kenny didn't tell her. 18:54 Instead, he needed to speak to Lewis. 18:58 His decision not to explain himself was strategic. 19:01 Neither Bobby nor Lewis had been told explicitly that Linnell was dead, and Detective Kenny 19:07 wanted to hold back that information for as long as possible. 19:10 When he talked to Lewis, he wanted to see if Lewis would act confused, which would 19:14 be the natural reaction if you really hadn't done anything, or if he would behave like 19:20 a guilty person who knew exactly why the police were calling him in the middle of the night. 19:24 Detective Kenny heard Bobby hand over the phone and then a man came on the line 19:28 and said he was Lewis. And right away Lewis said, this is about Linnell. 19:34 When Kenny finished the phone call a few minutes later, he was feeling good, 19:37 because now he had a definite number one suspect. 19:41 Lewis had brought up Linnell without being told she was dead, and then he had been 19:46 surprisingly cooperative when Kenny responded by giving him no information at all and just 19:51 told him to go outside and get into the squad car in front of the house that's waiting for him. 19:56 To Kenny, it seemed like Lewis had been waiting for this call, and maybe even feeling guilty. 20:01 He thought of the plastic that had been pulled over Linnell's face, 20:04 like whoever had killed her couldn't bear to look at what they had done. 20:08 After Kenny had told Lewis over the phone to go get into the squad car, 20:12 He had spoken to Linnell's mom, Bobby Barsock, again, and when he told her that her daughter 20:16 was dead, Bobby just wailed in anguish into the phone, and then eventually, she told Kenny 20:22 how controlling and jealous Louis was, and she said she was coming to the sheriff's 20:26 department to talk to them too. 20:28 It would take more than an hour and a half for Louis and Bobby to get to Palmdale, 20:32 but that was fine by Kenny. 20:34 He and his partner still needed to go talk to their first eye witness, the friend 20:38 Lorraine, who had reported the murder in the first place, who was waiting for 20:41 them at the Sheriff's Department. 20:46 Around 6am, detectives Kenny and Espinoe walked through the same Sheriff's Department doors 20:51 that Lorraine had burst through 11 hours earlier, saying that she had found her friend dead. 20:56 Lorraine had already told her story to uniformed officers, but Kenny wanted to hear her story 21:00 directly. 21:01 He had read her statement, and it was clear that she had been in a state of pure panic 21:05 when she had first arrived at the department. 21:08 When Kenny and his partner walked into the interview room and sat down across 21:12 from Lorraine, Kenny thought she seemed a lot calmer than her statement made her out to be, 21:16 although she did still have blood on her clothes and looked exhausted and clearly shaken up. 21:21 He started slowly, with general questions about her relationship to Lynel. 21:25 Lorraine said they were really good friends, and they hung out a few times a week, 21:29 since they lived so close to each other. Then she went over what had happened the day before, 21:34 how she'd gone to Lynel's that morning to do her hair, but then Lynel and Lewis had 21:38 had gotten into a big fight, and he, Lewis, had ended up chasing them all around town. 21:42 Lorraine said that she and Lanelle had gone back to Lanelle's house at about 12.30pm, 21:47 and Lewis was there waiting for them. She said that she decided to leave and give the 21:51 couple some space. Lorraine said the couple's fighting was typical, and that whole relationship 21:56 honestly was toxic. But this fight in particular did seem worse, because Lanelle was cheating 22:02 on Lewis with a man named Ike, and Lewis had found out about it. 22:06 Kenny and Espino looked at each other. 22:08 This information lined up exactly with that letter they had found at the scene. 22:13 Lorraine said after she had left Lonells, she had gone to a nearby park, and there she 22:17 just waited to hear from Lonell. 22:19 But by early evening, she still had not heard, and she was starting to get worried. 22:24 So around 6.45pm, she went back to Lonells to make sure her friend was okay. 22:29 And that's when she found Lonell's body. 22:31 As Lorraine told this part of the story, her calm affect changed and she became much more emotional. 22:37 Lorraine looked down at her stained clothes and just began to cry. 22:41 Detective Kenny pushed a box of tissues across the table. 22:44 He felt for Lorraine because no matter what, it was a trauma she would carry for the rest of her life to have found her friend dead. 22:50 But there was one thing about her story that just kind of didn't sit right. 22:54 And that was Lorraine's claim that she had been sitting in the park for five hours 22:58 just waiting for her friend to call her back or text her. 23:02 Kenny wasn't sure he believed that. 23:04 It had been very hot out all day, almost 90 degrees, 23:07 and that whole time what Lorraine is just sitting 23:09 on a bench, people watching, waiting for Linnell 23:11 the whole time, it just seemed sort of unrealistic. 23:14 But that was her story and she hadn't changed it once. 23:18 In any ways, the crime itself did really seem 23:20 like textbook domestic violence. 23:22 And Linnell's boyfriend, Louis, 23:23 was acting like a man with a very guilty conscience. 23:26 But regardless, at this point, it was obvious to Kenny that Lorraine was no longer in any 23:31 condition to answer any more questions, so they would just have to talk to her again later. 23:36 So he and Detective Espinoe told Lorraine she could go. 23:39 And then, when the detectives stepped out of the interview room, an officer was waiting 23:42 for them. 23:43 The boyfriend, Louis Bonair, had arrived. 23:54 Switching to one of energy as smart plans could mean lower energy bills for future 23:59 you. 23:59 and you'll get energy insights to help you track your usage, set budgets and even see which appliances are using more energy. 24:08 That adds up to smarter energy choices and real savings on your electricity. 24:13 Save more with an Energia smart plan. 24:16 Future you will thank you. 24:18 Visit Energia.ie or call us on 0818 300 701. 24:24 And remember you'll always get the best deals if you come to us direct. 24:29 For information on available smart plans, see Energia.ie 24:33 She calls it Other Mommy. 24:36 You look like you. 24:37 What? 24:38 From Blumhouse, Executive Producer of Obsession. 24:41 It was me. 24:42 What? 24:43 Is it me? 24:44 And James Wan, Producer of Backrooms. 24:46 You'll have to be scared, Mommy. 24:48 She's nice. 24:50 Can I go into your heart? 24:53 There's nothing like a mother's love. 24:56 We'll have so much fun together. 25:08 Now, Lewis still had not been told what happened to Lanelle, like he didn't know she was dead. 25:13 And suspiciously, he had not asked anybody why he had been summoned to the Sheriff's 25:17 Department. 25:18 And he still didn't ask when detectives Kenny and Espino sat down across from him in 25:23 an interrogation room. 25:24 As soon as the door closed behind the detectives, they asked Lewis about his relationship 25:28 with Lanelle. 25:29 And right away, Lewis launched into a story about Lanell that, as far as Kenny could tell, 25:35 was full of lies. 25:36 Lewis said he and Lanell had a great relationship and were deeply in love. 25:41 He said they'd had a couple of minor fights, but nothing that would lead to a breakup. 25:45 Just normal relationship stuff. 25:47 And he said neither of them was seeing anyone else. 25:51 Both Kenny and Espino knew this was false, not just because of the letter they found 25:55 found, and the things that Lorraine and Bobby had told them, but because they had checked 25:59 the police record of calls to Lanell and Lewis' home and found that at least twice, officers 26:05 had been called to break up a domestic disturbance that started because Lanell was speaking to 26:09 another man. 26:11 The detectives asked Lewis to walk them through everything he did on June 16th, the day 26:15 Lanell was murdered. 26:17 Lewis admitted that he and Lanell had gotten into a fight that morning because 26:21 he'd found Lanell's secret cell phone. 26:23 phone. He also admitted to following Lanelle and Lorraine around town, trying to get answers 26:27 from his girlfriend about why she was using this secret phone. 26:31 But Lewis said they had only fought until about 12.40pm. At that point, he said he had 26:36 gone to LA and gotten his truck repaired by Lorraine's boyfriend. He said he'd 26:40 gotten to Lorraine's boyfriend's place around 2pm and then spent the rest of 26:44 the day going to auto supply shops in the area to buy car parts. And then after 26:48 After that, around 6pm, he'd arrived at Lanell's mother's house for the night. 26:53 And while Lewis was sitting there, telling the detectives this very far-fetched story, 26:57 all the detectives could think about was the long, thin scratch on the side of Lewis's 27:02 face. 27:03 When Lewis finished his story about what he'd done the day before, Detective Espinoe 27:07 asked him about the scratch. 27:08 And this kicked up a whole nother story by Lewis. 27:11 He talked fast, explaining that Lanell had scratched him a few days ago, but 27:15 he just said it was a misunderstanding. 27:16 understanding, however, the detectives did not buy it, and so Kenny decided it was time 27:21 to go on the offensive. 27:23 He had a folder in front of him, and from it, he took out the letter that police had 27:27 found at Lennel and Lewis' home that said Lennel was breaking up with Lewis to go be 27:32 with her other boyfriend, Ike, and Kenny slid that letter across the table to Lewis 27:37 and then sat back silently while Lewis read it. 27:40 Now, Kenny was expecting Lewis to read this letter with some level of recognition 27:44 and then after that he would likely crumble. 27:47 After all, Lewis had just sat here lying to their faces 27:50 for a full half hour and now they were showing him 27:53 that they had known he was lying to them the whole time. 27:55 I mean, if nothing else, it was clear 27:57 they were not in a loving relationship 27:59 and his girlfriend was seeing other people. 28:02 Kenny actually wondered if when confronted 28:04 with this letter, if Lewis might actually 28:06 just confess right then and there. 28:08 But instead, after Lewis finished reading it, 28:11 he just frowned and looked up in confusion 28:13 and said he had never seen him before. 28:16 He did admit that he knew who Ike was, 28:18 but he said that, you know, 28:19 Linnell and Ike were just friends. 28:21 Kenny had to stop himself from shaking his head in disgust. 28:25 These lies were shameless 28:26 and he couldn't stand to listen to them anymore. 28:29 So he leaned across the table 28:31 and he told Lewis the real reason 28:33 he had been brought to this interview room. 28:35 The letter, he said, had been found at his house 28:37 and his girlfriend, Linnell, had been murdered. 28:41 At this, Lewis did lose his composure. He started stammering incoherently and then broke down into 28:47 hysterical sobs. Detectives Kenny and Espinoe just watched him for a minute. They didn't feel 28:52 sorry for him at all. All they actually thought was, this guy is a really good actor. Without 28:58 waiting for him to stop crying, they told him they were going to need his fingerprints 29:02 and samples of his DNA. And then they dropped one final bombshell. They said they were 29:07 going to continue their investigation into Linnell's murder, but Lewis was not leaving 29:12 the Sheriff's Department. 29:13 Between the record of domestic disturbances, the scratch on his face, the huge fight the 29:18 day of the murder, his lies during the interview, and his so far unconfirmed alibi, the detectives 29:23 told Lewis they had enough to arrest him on suspicion of murder. 29:28 The detectives left the interrogation room as a crime tech went in to collect Lewis' 29:32 his DNA samples, and a uniform police officer stood by to start the booking procedure as 29:37 soon as they were done. 29:38 The detectives were not even one full day into their investigation, and they already 29:42 had taken a suspect into custody. 29:45 And so they were both feeling pretty good, and very much like they needed to take a 29:48 break for at least a few hours and go get some sleep. 29:52 However, as they walked back into the lobby, they saw a woman with a puffy, tear-streaked 29:57 face walk in the door looking lost and bewildered. 30:00 At the same time, the detectives realized this had to be Bobby Barsock, Linel's mother, 30:06 and so sleep would have to wait. 30:08 They ushered Bobby into a private room and got all three of them cups of coffee. 30:13 What Kenny and Espino needed from Bobby first and foremost was a timeline of the evening 30:17 of the murder because Bobby was part of Lewis' alibi. 30:21 So, as they sipped their coffee, they asked her to walk them through what happened when 30:25 Lewis showed up, what time, what he said, everything. 30:28 In a shaky voice, Bobby said Lewis had gotten to her house a little after 6pm. 30:33 She was sure of the time because Family Feud had just started on TV when he walked in the 30:38 door. 30:39 Kenny furrowed his eyebrows. 30:40 This was exactly what Lewis had said, which was a little disappointing because if Lewis 30:44 had lied about when he got to Bobby's house, it would have made the case simpler. 30:48 Still though, this detail didn't mean Lewis was innocent. 30:52 Lanelle had to have been killed sometime between about 12.30pm after she got home 30:56 from the beauty store, and 6.45pm, when Lorraine discovered her body. It would have taken Lewis 31:02 about an hour and a half to drive from Palmdale to Bobby's house, which meant that to arrive by 31:07 six, he had to leave no later than about 4.30pm. So, Bobby's timeline left Lewis approximately 31:14 three to four hours before he had left, when he claimed he was just walking around shopping 31:18 for car parts, but he actually could have been killing Lanelle. But before Detective 31:24 Kenny could follow that thought any further, Bobby told the detectives that there was something 31:28 important she had to show them. It was part of the reason she had driven all the way up here. 31:32 She pulled out her phone, and the detectives leaned forward to look. On the screen, 31:37 she pulled up a text message. It was from Linnell's other boyfriend, Ike. 31:41 On the night of the murder, Ike had messaged Bobby to say he spoke to Linnell that day, 31:46 and she sounded scared. He said he was worried that Louis was going to hurt her. 31:50 As Bobby put her phone away, Kenny thought that message made Lewis look really bad. 31:56 However, Kenny was a veteran homicide detective and he knew that finding a killer was as much 32:01 about ruling the right suspect in as it was about ruling the wrong suspects out. 32:06 The victim's romantic partner was almost always the first suspect, but in this case, 32:11 Lanelle had two of them. 32:13 Lewis and Ike were both part of this love triangle, so by default they were both 32:17 suspects. To prove that Lewis was guilty, the detectives also needed to prove that Ike was innocent. 32:24 After speaking with Lanelle's mother, detectives Kenny and Espino had both been awake for more 32:28 than 24 hours. So they decided to get some sleep. Then they regrouped on the afternoon of June 17, 32:35 the day after the murder. Their case was moving fast. Lanelle's boyfriend Lewis was in custody 32:40 and they were hoping the evidence would continue to line up and continue to point 32:44 straight at him. But Linnell was living a more complicated life than it looked like from the 32:48 outside, and now they needed to rule her second boyfriend, Ike, out as a suspect. 32:54 So their first step when they returned to the Sheriff's Department was to track Ike down, 32:59 and because Bobby had given them his number, it wasn't that difficult, 33:02 they just called him up on the phone. Ike's full name was Ike Umuna, 33:06 and he lived in Northern California, and he readily admitted to having a relationship 33:10 with Lanelle, and he said he had given her that secret cell phone because Lewis was unpredictable 33:15 and scary. When Kenny told Ike that Lanelle was dead, Ike broke down. This was exactly what he 33:22 said he'd been afraid of when he had texted Lanelle's mom. Ike said he had an alibi for the 33:26 entire day of the murder. He said he had been at a job interview at the University of California, 33:31 Davis, which was a six-hour drive from Palmdale. And this was exactly the kind of thing Kenny 33:36 it hoped to hear. Because if this was true, then Kenny knew it was not physically possible 33:41 for Ike to have killed Lanell himself. That didn't mean he hadn't hired a hitman, 33:45 but to Kenny, the crime scene looked like a murder committed by an amateur, not a professional. 33:50 Yes, Lanell had been shot in the back of the head, which was sort of execution style 33:54 and maybe hitman style, but the bloody, messy scene suggested a level of panic after 33:59 the fact that it didn't make sense for a stranger killing for money. So it was looking 34:04 very likely that they would be able to rule Ike out as a suspect. Kenny told Ike they 34:09 would be in touch and then he hung up the phone. Kenny and Espino looked at each other. 34:13 They would run down both boyfriend's alibis at the same time and whoever's didn't check 34:17 out was very likely their murderer. Now, the breakneck pace of the investigation slowed, 34:27 as Kenny and Espino began the painstaking work of finding every person that Lewis and 34:32 Ike mentioned interacting with on the day of the murder. Both detectives were 34:37 leaning towards Lewis as their guy. 34:39 And initially, their interviews seemed to confirm 34:41 their suspicions, ruling Ike out and ruling Lewis in. 34:45 Ike's alibi was basically airtight. 34:47 Administrators at the University of California, 34:49 Davis confirmed that he had been there 34:51 right in the middle of the day, 34:53 which meant he definitely was not in Palmdale. 34:55 And as the detectives talked to more of Linnell's friends, 34:58 Ike's warning about Lewis' violence 35:00 started to look less extraordinary. 35:02 Because basically everyone in Linnell's life 35:05 seemed to have been worried about her relationship with Lewis. 35:08 But as the days went by, and Kenny and Espino leaned into tracking each and every one of 35:13 Lewis' movements on the day of the murder, they found something surprising. 35:17 Lewis' alibi also checked out. 35:20 The detectives searched Lewis' truck and found receipts from June 16th, which was 35:24 the day of the murder. 35:25 Lewis had claimed he was shopping for car parts that afternoon, but the detectives 35:29 had not believed him. 35:30 However, the receipt showed that he was in fact near LA an hour and a half 35:34 away from Palmdale, starting a little before 3 p.m. 35:38 And so suddenly, the window of time that Lewis had to murder Lanelle shrunk from around 35:42 three or four hours to only about one hour. 35:45 Of course, it was still possible that he killed Lanelle in that hour, but when the 35:50 detectives pulled surveillance footage from the auto shops, they saw Lewis walking calmly 35:54 through the aisles and paying at the registers. 35:56 There was no blood, no nervous behavior that would suggest he had just shot and 36:00 killed his girlfriend. 36:01 But the final blow to their case against Lewis came when Kenny and Espino tracked down Lorraine's 36:07 boyfriend, who was the one who actually worked on Lewis' car. He told them that on the day of 36:12 the murder, Lewis had shown up at his house in LA at 2pm. This meant that Lewis had apparently 36:18 been telling the truth when he said he left his house at 12.40pm, which meant Lewis could 36:23 not have killed Lanell. So in the middle of July, one month after Kenny and Espino had 36:29 had picked up what they thought would be an open and shut murder case, they were forced 36:33 to release their primary suspect, Lewis, from jail. 36:36 Now they were back to square one. 36:39 Detectives Kenny and Espino could have just waited for the forensic evidence to come back. 36:44 The crime scene text had collected so much DNA evidence that it had taken multiple days 36:48 to process the scene, and would take months to return results. 36:52 But whoever had killed Lanelle had tried and failed to clean it up, and in the 36:55 process had left fingerprints and maybe even their own DNA behind. 37:00 But there was something bothering both of the detectives about the timeline they had 37:04 spent weeks constructing so methodically. 37:06 They had a precise chronology of the movements of Linnell, Lorraine, Bobby, Lewis, and Ike 37:12 as well as all of Linnell's friends and family, but the only thing this chronology 37:16 really showed was that no one had been able to kill Linnell. 37:20 So somebody was lying, they just didn't know who. 37:23 Now, the detectives had already pulled Lanelle's phone records from the day she was killed, 37:27 but now they decided to get new search warrants. 37:30 They didn't just want suspect and victim phone records anymore, they wanted to know 37:34 who their witnesses had spoken to too. 37:36 It would take the detectives about four months to get their hands on all the records 37:40 they needed, but when they did, everything suddenly made sense. 37:44 It turned out that Lanelle had been keeping one more secret that Kenny and 37:49 Spino had not been able to uncover, until they discovered a single phone call made at 37:54 4.44pm on the day of the murder that explained everything. 38:03 Based on evidence collected by investigators, the following is a reconstruction of what 38:08 police believe happened to Lanelle Barsock on June 16th, 2010. 38:19 That afternoon, sometime before 4pm, the killer stood in the living room at Lanelle's 38:24 house, right behind Lanelle, staring at the back of her head. 38:28 Even though they both had moved on from the fight earlier in the day, the killer could tell 38:33 Linnell was still upset. But truthfully, they weren't really concerned about how Linnell felt. 38:39 Linnell had so much. A great personality, a loving family, a growing career. But the killer 38:45 only had Linnell, who they still had deep feelings for. And now that Linnell didn't want them, 38:51 they decided Linnell shouldn't have anything. Slowly and silently, the killer lifted the 38:57 gun they had brought with them, aimed it at the back of Linnell's head and pulled the trigger. 39:02 Linnell immediately slumped to the floor and seconds later blood was pooling all around her. 39:08 Step one of the plan was complete. Now the killer just had to clean up and then after that they 39:13 would drive to the desert where they would bury her body and everything that had blood on it. 39:17 They quickly wrapped Linnell's head in a plastic bag to keep more blood from spreading 39:21 then they dragged Linnell to the garage where the car was. After that the killer 39:25 stopped up all the blood in the living room with towels, and so far it seemed like everything 39:29 was going great. Soon the floor was clean. But then, at 4.44pm, they heard their phone 39:35 ring. And on the other end was a person who had some bad news. Somebody was on their 39:41 way to the house. The killer knew if they didn't hurry, they'd be caught. This 39:46 made the killer panic, and instead of finishing the cleanup, they decided to make sure 39:50 that the evidence left behind didn't lead to them, but to somebody else. 39:54 else. 39:54 So they quickly wrote a fake letter and left that behind. 39:58 Then they ran out of the house, got in their car, and sped off to the sheriff's department 40:02 to report the crime they had just committed. 40:06 Because the killer was Lanelle's so-called close friend Lorraine Austin. 40:11 She executed her friend in cold blood while she was standing right behind her doing 40:16 her hair. 40:22 It would turn out these two women were not just friends. 40:25 They actually had a romantic relationship that they both had kept a secret. 40:30 They had met online just a month earlier and briefly dated. 40:33 However, five days before her murder, Lanelle suggested they just be friends. 40:38 And Lorraine had been devastated. 40:40 Because not only was she in love with Lanelle, she also wanted to BE Lanelle. 40:45 Lorraine was extremely jealous of her. 40:48 Lanelle had a career, she had a big house, while Lorraine was in debt and living 40:52 at her mom's place. 40:53 and so being dumped by her made her bitter and furious. 40:58 Lorraine's phone records revealed her romantic relationship 41:01 with Lanelle and their breakup. 41:03 And most critically, the records also showed 41:05 what interrupted Lorraine while she was cleaning 41:08 up the crime scene. 41:09 It was a phone call from her boyfriend, 41:11 the same one who had been with Louis all afternoon 41:13 fixing his truck. 41:14 The boyfriend told her that Louis had just left 41:17 and that made Lorraine think Louis was coming home 41:19 when in reality, Louis was going to 41:22 Lynel's mother's house for the night. 41:24 But since Lorraine thought he'd be there soon, she pivoted from cleaning up the crime 41:27 scene to framing Lewis. 41:30 When the forensic evidence was finally processed, it revealed Lorraine's DNA and fingerprints 41:35 at the scene, but that was to be expected because she was friends with Lynel. 41:40 However, her DNA and fingerprints were found in areas that tied her directly to 41:44 the crime. 41:46 By the time police solved the case, Lorraine had gone on the run. 41:49 one. She wasn't captured until a year and a half after the murder, after authorities 41:53 put the case on America's most wanted, and a tipster spotted her in Belize. 41:58 Lorraine Austin was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive 25 42:03 years to life prison terms. She'll be eligible for parole in 2032. 42:16 A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes 42:21 use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for 42:26 dramatic purposes. 42:30 The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive 42:34 produced by me, Mr. Ballin. 42:36 Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacasio. 42:40 This episode was written by Kate Murdock, research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, 42:44 Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Faciano, 42:50 research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Ear, audio editing and post-produced 42:55 by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stidham. 42:57 Production support by Antonio Monata and Delana Corley. 43:00 Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Keyner. 43:02 Theme song, Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. 43:05 Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. 43:08 And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, 43:13 you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. 43:17 And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. 43:21 Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. 43:24 If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com 43:34 to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. 43:39 So, that's going to do it. 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